Jones' studio is in North Adams, Massachusetts, but she shoots mostly on the road. In November, she rented studios in Chicago, Cleveland and London, booking five sessions a day for a Saturday and Sunday in each location. She does about 150 sittings a year. Ninety percent of her business is dogs; cats make up the rest.
In addition to portraits (her work is online at amandajones.com), Jones has published three books featuring dog photographs, the last of which, Dachshunds Short and Long (Berkley), came out in October. To find models, she posted a request on Craigslist for fit, well-behaved and well-groomed dachshunds, a strategy that provided mixed results.
"I had one girl tell me she had the most beautiful long-haired dachshund in the world," Jones said. "Then she showed up for the shoot and the dog was probably 7 pounds (3kg) overweight and not that cute at all. And she barked at me the whole time."
Allison McCabe, Jones' editor, who was also on the shoot, said, "There was a lot of naked ambition of people who wanted their dogs on the cover. Some people were fine, but others made me think of `Best in Show.' They'd say, `My dog didn't have enough time.' Or, `My dog was just getting warmed up."'
"There's a lot of pet photography that's very cloying, very sentimental," McCabe said. "Amanda gets past that. She has a good rapport with dogs and gets them to be themselves on camera -- she gets the expression in their eyes that you see and say, `Yes, that's my dog."'
The client who posed that Sunday's biggest challenge was Scott Letcher. For the last several years he and his companion have hired Jones to photograph their dogs for a holiday card. They now have four female dogs: Madison, a black Labrador retriever, nine; Ellie, also a black lab, eight; Alex, a vizsla, eight; and Bea, a Weimaraner, a seven-month-old puppy.
Jones said holiday cards now make up about 10 percent of her business, mostly for clients who do not have children.
Letcher is frank about the compensatory role his dogs play. "People who have kids talk about having a legacy, but as wishful as I may be for two men to have that, the reality is very different," he said. "So having dogs is a way for me to express that part of myself -- of wanting, and needing, to be a parent."
He held up a photograph of his two black labs that Jones took a few years ago. The dogs lie back-to-back on their sides, nearly mirror images, and look toward the camera, their eyes the color of chestnuts.
"If this is the only thing I produce in my life, then what else is there?" he said. "Those are my dogs, and they love each other. It may be simplistic, but it is what it is."
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